Effects of language experience on domain-general perceptual strategies

Abstract

Acoustic dimensions important in a person's native language have been shown to influence second language perception. Here we show that such effects can extend beyond language. In two experiments, native speakers of Mandarin (N=45)-where pitch is a crucial cue to word identity-placed more importance on pitch and less importance on other dimensions compared to native speakers of non-tonal languages English (N=46) and Spanish (N=27), during the perception of both second language speech and musical beats. In a third experiment, we further show that Mandarin speakers are better able to attend to pitch and ignore irrelevant variation in other dimensions compared to English and Spanish speakers, and even struggle to ignore pitch when asked to attend to other dimensions. Thus, an individual's idiosyncratic perceptual system reflects a complex mixture of congenital predispositions and biases instilled by extensive experience in directing attention to important dimensions in their native language.

A Longitudinal Investigation of Explicit and Implicit Auditory Processing in L2 Segmental and Suprasegmental Acquisition

“…Saito, Sun et al, in press). AUDITORY PROCESSING & L2 SPEECH ACQUISITION Depending on their L1s (e.g., tonal vs. non-tonal), L2 learners may recruit different spectro-temporal cues to extract information from the auditory input (Jasmin, Sun, & Tierney, 2021). Therefore, it would be interesting to compare the impact of spectral and temporal perception abilities on L2 acquisition among learners with various L1-L2 pairings.…”

Human Genomics and the Biocultural Origin of Music

“…These studies show that there is a strong correlation between language and music related to the development of skills in these two domains and their cognitive processing, independent of formal musical training [77][78][79]. Other researchers highlight how music perception influences language acquisition [80], is linked to spatial processing, visual memory and speech perception [81][82][83] and how the structural redundancy of speech and musical communication shapes the individual's perceptual abilities [84,85]. Moreover, neuroimaging experiments document how music and language are processed in the same areas of the brain and in similar ways, on the basis of their syntactic integration mechanisms [86,87].…”

Individual Differences in Perception of the Speech-to-Song Illusion are Linked to Musical Aptitude but not Musical Experience

“…For each test 40 trials were presented, with each trial pseudorandomly drawn from the set of 16 possible stimuli (a single randomization was performed for each test and used across all participants). This test has previously been shown to be sensitive to individual differences in dimensional salience: Mandarin speakers were found to display better performance on the Attention to Pitch test and worse performance on the Attention to Amplitude test, compared to native English speakers, suggesting that their experience speaking a tone language led to increased pitch salience across languages (Jasmin et al 2021). Stimuli from these tests are available at https://osf.io/hegxs/.…”